Mental Wellbeing and Exercise Participation during COVID-19 Pandemic among Adult Residents of Nigeria's Niger Delta

Exercise can help mitigate mental wellbeing problems that people are likely to suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic Yet, there are few or no official guidelines on exercising among the strategies for containing the pandemic It could be due to the fact that the relationship between exercise participation and mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic had been empirically demonstrated This study was conducted to establish the relationship between exercise participation and mental wellbeing during the pandemic among the adult residents of Nigeria’s Niger Delta metropolitan cities The cross-sectional survey research design was adopted to study all adult residents in the area A sample of 1,800 adult residents was selected using purposive and stratified systematic sampling techniques The 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) and the Exercise Participation Questionnaire (EPQ) adapted from the Historical Adulthood Physical Activity Questionnaire (HAPAQ) were the data collection instruments Frequency counts, means, standard deviations and linear regression analysis were used to analyse data It was found that, although Total Daily Energy Expenditure on exercise during the pandemic was found to be significantly (β = 0 504, t = 13 905, p = 0 000) related to mental wellbeing of respondents during the pandemic It was concluded that current exercise participation can help in preserving one’s mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic © 2020 by authors, all rights reserved